Clare challenge awaits Cats in All-Ireland last four

And then there were four!

For the second year running, Kilkenny and Clare will lock horns in the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship semi-finals as both counties battle it out for a place on hurling’s biggest day.

Clare advanced to this stage when running out hugely impressive winners over Dublin in the All-Ireland quarter-final at the TUS Gaelic Grounds in Limerick last Saturday evening.

The match was a contest throughout the opening half but the ‘Banner soon pulled away as they found the net on five occasions to run out 5-26 to 2-17 winners.

In many people’s eyes, Clare will go into Sunday week’s encounter as favourites on the back of a storming Munster campaign that saw them come out one point losers to Limerick in the provincial decider.

In many ways though, the formlines are of a similar notion to last year’s last four meeting where Brian Lohan’s team were also fancied but inspired by a superb man marking job on Tony Kelly from Mikey Butler, the Cats ran riot in a 2-26 to 0-20 success.

Tony Kelly will come into this year’s semi-final in a similar vein of form after scoring a hat-trick against Dublin and with the likes of David Fitzgerald, Shane O’Donnell and Mark Rodgers all performing admirably throughout 2023, Derek Lyng and his management team will certainly have to do their homework.

Clare centre back John Conlon missed out during last year’s 12-point defeat, and he’s a doubt once more but Leinster kingpins, Kilkenny certainly have their own worries to think about with Adrian Mullen, Mikey Carey and Mossy Keoghan still classed as big injury worries.

With the game still 11 days away away, we won’t get a full gauge on the health of both squads until another week at the very least.

The Clare and Kilkenny game isn’t the only reason for a bit of a groundhog day feeling as 24 hours previous, Limerick and Galway meet in another repeat of last year’s semi finals.

Kilkenny’s Henry Shefflin helped the Tribesmen get over their recent Leinster final heartbreak, as he guided the men from the west back to Croke Park with a 1-20 to 1-18 win over Tipperary.

Both semi-finals are expected to attract huge crowds to GAA HQ with Galway v Limerick down for Saturday July, 8 at 6pm and Kilkenny’s meeting with Clare a day later fixed for 4pm.

Tickets for the two games are now on on sale at the usual Centra and Supervalu outlets as well as www.gaa.ie.